


The Alien Ailment

by explodingnebulae



Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: M/M, Sick Spock, Sickfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-22
Updated: 2014-02-22
Packaged: 2018-01-13 09:47:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,963
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1221700
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/explodingnebulae/pseuds/explodingnebulae
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Spock is terribly ill and, as always, terribly stubborn. Jim is on a mission to ensure his bondmate follows his express orders. (This was a prompt I was asked to write on tumblr)</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Alien Ailment

"Captain, I assure you, I am more than fit for duty," Spock sniffled as he tried to sit up. He was met by a firm hand forcing him to lay back, a rejection of his assurance. Normally, Spock would have been able to brush Kirk’s attempts to overpower him aside. Humans were physically weaker than Vulcans—as well as most other races in the known galaxy—and for Spock to genuinely yield to his captain’s force, something had to be wrong.

"Spock, don’t fight me on this. Or do you want me to send you on a little field-trip to Sick Bay?" threatened Jim sternly. Spock had a way of submitting whenever Bones was mentioned. It was an almost human need to avoid confrontation with the Chief Medical Officer. They weren’t exactly enemies, but they weren’t exactly friends. Kirk didn’t know what to call the relationship between his XO and his CMO. 

Spock only huffed in response, his features stiffening as he tried to keep his Vulcan composure. There was a damning human element to Spock being ill. He was somewhat needy, but in a way that Kirk found admittedly adorable. The Vulcan was all about keeping someone close whilst simultaneously wanting them to stay as far away as possible. And James Tiberius Kirk was the human caught in the position of Spock’s constant struggle of being fine and wanting to be alone to not being anywhere near okay and wanting him to watch over him, though he wouldn’t vocally admit it. The Vulcan coughed, turned over on his mattress, pulled the covers up over his shoulders, and sniffled before coughing again. 

"Fit for duty, huh?" chided Jim with a smile. "Look, Spock, I’m going to go pay Bones a visit, see what I can get you, maybe stop by the replicator on my way back in and see if the ship has Plomeek soup in its memory banks, alright? Just, don’t get out of bed," he added in a much softer tone, resting his hand against the Vulcan’s forehead. Being naturally hot to the touch, Jim expected Spock to be slightly warmer than usual. He was not anticipating the near impossible heat that radiated from his science officer. Kirk quickly pulled back his hand with a curse riding under his breath. He moved his hand to feel around the Vulcan’s neck and collarbone, testing for any abnormalities in his glands. His species’ lymphatic system took a different course throughout the body, but he still had one. And his glands were indeed swollen. "I’ll be back."

Kirk shifted on the bed to leave. His legs unfolded themselves and he stood, allowing himself a full body stretch accompanied by a groan before starting for the door.

"T’hy’la," Spock’s hoarse voice followed him and halted Jim in his tracks. Two years into their five year mission had changed a lot of the crew in a lot of ways. Uhura and Spock had separated three months into the voyage, due to complications—Jim Kirk—and agreed to carry on as friends. Four months later, Spock and Jim had established something of a steady relationship. Their attempts to hide it from the crew were genuine but hardly successful. The word t’hy’la was a more recent thing. Spock had explained both its meaning and the significance between them. The powerful onslaught of emotion associated with the bond was felt only one other time and Jim understood, in a strange way, why the elder Spock acted as he had around him. Even in another timeline, they found each other, cared for each other. 

Jim turned around as the doors hissed open, his hand resting on the frame. “Yeah, Spock?”

"I do appreciate your actions in regard to my ailment. You are not bound by any obl—"

"Stop it, Spock. You’re sick. You’re my first officer, my _lover_. I’m going to take care of you, alright? Now, shut it and let me do just that. That’s an order.” Jim raised his other hand as he cut Spock short. He wasn’t about to be thanked for something that he didn’t need praising for. That wasn’t how he worked. For the most part, Kirk hated unnecessary praise, it made him feel cheap.

Mentally, Kirk sent Spock a warm sensation of gratitude, not wanting the Vulcan to feel as though he was being a burden. Even though they were in the far reaches of the galaxy, nothing interesting was happening. Nothing was going on. They hadn’t stumbled upon trouble for nearly two weeks now and Jim was admittedly going a little stir crazy. A sick Vulcan was exactly what he needed. 

The doors hissed shut behind him and he moved swiftly to the turbolift. He commanded the lift to the Sick Bay and listened as it hummed and whirred itself this way and that. Before long, the doors opened and Kirk was on the floor designated for medical personnel. A couple of the medical staff, nurses Jim thought, smiled warmly at him. He beamed back before turning into the Sick Bay doors and heading straight for the office of one Dr. Leonard Horatio McCoy.

There was something about Bones’ office that gave Jim chills, but the captain pushed it aside and strode around as if he owned the place. After all, it was his ship and the office’s owner was nowhere in sight. Jim looked around the room then went straight for the small bookcase. On it were antique books. Actual paper books. Jim owned a few of them himself, being what his mother had called a new mind with an old soul. 

He grabbed one entitled _Gray’s Anatomy_. Original publication date 1858, written by Henry Gray. Kirk sat at Bones’ desk and began flipping through the pages with the foreknowledge that nothing in the book would hold his interest. He was just passing the time until Bones’ meandered into his office. Which happened sooner than Jim had anticipated.

"Jim, what the hell are you doing in my office?" came the doctor’s naturally biting, Southern voice. "Be careful with that! It’s an antique."

"I know, Bones, calm down. I was just killing some time, anyway. Spock’s sick and refuses to come and see you. I think he’s afraid that you’ll stick him with all those hypos," Jim said as he cringed histrionically. 

"Uh, no, that would be you. Spock is at least compliant when it comes to his regular physicals and checkups. He’s just too damn stubborn to get help when he’s sick. He’d rather passively complain than just come and see me. What does he have?"

"I know!" Jim agreed excitedly as he slammed the book shut. "I mean, I understand the whole rigid Vulcan ‘I am a robot’ act. But the guy is a total puppy when it comes to being sick."

McCoy rolled his eyes and grabbed the book from the desk. “Dammit, man. Focus. I wouldn’t care if he turned into a Gorn and sneezed out peppermint candies. What does he have?” repeated the doctor with more than a little impatience. 

"Can that happen?" asked Jim with wide eyes. He knew better but he enjoyed getting as much of a rise as he could out of Bones. A hard glance and an exasperated sigh was his cue to continue. "Anyway, I think he has a Vulcan version of a cold? I went to check his temperature, but he was almost too hot to touch. He has chills, a cough, a lot of sneezing and sniffling, and when I felt his glands, they were swollen."

"He’s had this once before. Come with me," instructed Bones with a motion to the pharmaceutical section of the Sick Bay.

Jim followed him in silence. Ever since Bones had stuck him with multiple hypos in a very short time span, he distrusted the medical staff to some degree. It was an unjustified fear, he knew, but Kirk couldn’t shake it.

"Here," Bones said as he handed Jim a capped hypo along with a small bottle of pills. "Have him eat something before he takes the pills. One every six hours for the remaining twenty-four hours. Inject him with the hypo the moment you walk into the room. It’s an immuno-booster that will help speed up his ability to fight off what he’s got."

Jim smiled widely as he took the medication from Bones, though he was slightly wary of hypo. “One pill every six hours and shoot him up with the hypo the second I walk in the room. Got it. Bones, you’re a lifesaver.”

"He’s just got a cold, Jim. That damn hobgoblin could probably fight it off faster than we humans could naturally and be completely healed in three days."

"Three days is too long," Kirk said with a wink, which earned an eye-roll from his Chief Medical Officer.

Jim retraced his steps and found himself back in the turbolift, this time commanding himself to return to Spock’s personal quarters. He took the time it took the turbolift to deliver him to his location to examine the pills Bones sanctioned for Spock. They were diamond shaped and deep purple in color. Nothing special or spectacular looking about them. They were just pills. 

He walked into Spock’s cabin and knelt on the bed. The Vulcan looked up at him, chocolate eyes both glazed and bloodshot, nose pea green, and body shaking slightly. “I’ll get you your soup in a minute, Spock. Just hold still for a moment, okay? Bones gave me this hypo to inject you with. He said it was some kind of immuno-booster.”

Spock nodded in understanding and shifted beneath the covers so that he was sitting up. He pressed his head into Kirk’s shoulder, stretching his neck and giving Kirk a suitable area to inject him with the hypo. Before obliging the Vulcan, Jim gently pressed his lips on the top of Spock’s head, knowing full well that what he had was noncommunicable between their species. The science officer hummed brokenly in appreciation, the sound a clear baritone in Kirk’s head. 

"Alright, Spock," said Jim, more for himself than Spock. He pressed the hypo against the Vulcan’s scorching neck and released the spray along his skin where it was absorbed instantly. Spock didn’t flinch but moved off Kirk’s shoulder.

"Doctor McCoy should have given you some regular medication as well. A regimen of tablets, I believe," said Spock before coughing into the crevice of his elbow. 

Kirk nodded, clambered off the bed, and made his way to the food replicator in Spock’s room. “Plomeek Soup,” he instructed the machine and five seconds later, he was given just that. The replicator’s screen lifted and a bowl of steaming hot, and very bland smelling, soup appeared.

"I know it’s not as good as the real thing when you’re sick, but it’s what we have," said Kirk as he set the bowl of soup down on the nightstand beside Spock’s bed. "Bones said to take them every six hours, but only after you’ve eaten," he added and pointed to the small packet of pills.

"I got to get back to the bridge before Chekov or Sulu blow the place up, though I think Uhura would beat their asses if they even thought of doing something out of line," he chuckled, though it wasn’t really a joke. "You just stay here and get some rest."

' _It's not like we can't talk, Spock,_ ' he added through their telepathic link before leaning down to kiss the Vulcan’s forehead. ‘ _But you need to eat and take your medication._ ’

Spock shifted in his bed and grabbed the bowl of soup, once again muttering his thanks to his commanding officer. And once again, Kirk shrugged it off, this time with a smile, as he walked out of Spock’s quarters.


End file.
